Carnegie

by Raymond Lamont-Brown

  Carnegie’s great friends Arnold, Spencer and Morley also had their say. In a letter about the book to the Liberal statesman and author Sir Mountstuart Duff, Arnold remarked:

  You should read Carnegie’s book. . . . The facts he has collected as to the material progress of [America] are remarkable. . . . He and most Americans are simply unaware that nothing in the book touches the capital defect of life over [there]; namely that, compared with life in England, it is so uninteresting, so without savour and without depth. Do they think to prove that it has savour and depth by pointing to the number of public libraries, schools and places of worship?19

  Herbert Spencer put to one side Carnegie’s political opinions but hailed the book as ‘a record’ of ‘the triumph of democracy’:

  Even recognising in full all you set forth as to the extent of prosperity in the United States, and even admitting that this is all due to the political arrangements, I should still be inclined to make a large discount from the alleged triumph of democracy on the ground that the material activity in America which accompanies it, whether as consequence or simply as concomitant, is a material prosperity by no means favourable to human life. Absorbed by his activities and spurred on by his unrestricted ambitions, the American is, to my thinking, a less happy being than the inhabitant of a country where the possibilities of success are very much smaller; and where, in the immense majority of cases, each has to be content with the hum-drum career in which circumstances have placed him, and, abandoning hopes of any great advance, is led to make the best of what satisfaction in life falls to his share. I believe on the whole that he gets more pleasure out of life than the successful American, and that his children inherit greater capacities for enjoyment. Great as may be hereafter the advantages of the enormous progress America makes, I hold that the existing generations of Americans, and those to come for a long time hence, are and will be essentially sacrificed.20

  John Morley thought the work ‘a substantial, well considered and important book’:

  I do not assent to every word in it, and there are some passages where the sentiment is a trifle too republican for a middle-aged monarchist like me: I mean too aggressively republican, for there is no difference between us as to the roots of things. . . . The book . . . is a solid contribution on the right side. And it is written in high spirits which give it an attractive literary vivacity.21

  Carnegie had written the book to his entire satisfaction; the bad reviews washed over him and he was happy with the work as a fine piece of self-propaganda. Having established himself in print as a radical, he wanted now to be seen as a visionary – but there was more to it than that . . . his radical soul wanted a revolution in British society, but his inherent pacifism saw it as a new evolution; he was developing into what modern thinkers would call a revisionist. Several biographers have studied Carnegie’s book trying to understand its deeper significance. American writer Robert McCloskey comes close to an answer:

  It seems reasonable to believe that he wrote [the book] because he had an imperious need to explain and justify himself and his environment, because he had to convince both the world and himself that what he was doing was good and that the context within which he operated was just. The book appears to be a defence of democracy; actually, it is a defence of nineteenth-century capitalism – and Carnegie.22

  Carnegie admitted that writing the book had exhausted him and he felt unwell through the stress of ‘statistics’.23 But there were to be more serious family illnesses. As Carnegie flitted back and forth from New York to Cresson, his brother Tom was dangerously ill with pneumonia back in Pittsburgh. Carnegie combined visits to his brother with business trips to the city but could not bring Tom out of his mental torpor. Now 43, Tom was in a seriously debilitated state; it was as if he did not wish to live, and years of heavy drinking had taken their toll. It is a matter of speculation as to what turned Tom Carnegie into an alcoholic. Some have observed that his life in the shadow of his brother had always made him feel inferior and that in the last few years he felt marginalised because of the structure of the company and Andrew Carnegie’s place in it. Certainly his wife Lucy believed that her husband’s mental state was entirely due to Carnegie’s years of bullying behaviour; being a strong character herself, she had had several spats with her brother-in-law on various subjects. Still they remained in contact. Sadly, Tom Carnegie died on 19 October 1886 three days after taking to his bed, leaving his widow and nine children.

  Meanwhile in the house at Cresson 76-year-old Margaret Carnegie was dying; she had been suffering for some while with a weak heart and was now in the throes of pneumonia. She was too ill to be told about her son Tom’s death. While with his mother at Cresson Carnegie himself succumbed to a severe chill and his New York physician, Dr Frederick S. Dennis, was called to give the local doctor a second opinion; he confirmed that Carnegie was suffering from typhoid.24 Carnegie worsened at the news of Tom’s death. All the while an anxious Louise was kept informed by daily telegrams from Carnegie’s secretary James H. Bridges. On 10 November 1886 the daily telegram informed Louise that Margaret Carnegie had died.

  The attendant local physician knew of the intensity of Carnegie’s relationship with his mother and did not inform him of her death until 17 November. Carnegie was in such a fragile condition that it was thought best that his mother’s coffin should not pass by her son’s bedroom door, and it was lowered instead from an upper room window. From the day that he realised she was dead Carnegie never mentioned his mother’s name for decades, and all pictures of her and her possessions were removed to storage: ‘he could never be reconciled’ to her death.25 Carnegie’s grief took a number of odd turns; he became jumpy about death, and suddenly very averse to the books of fellow Scot and fellow mother-obsessive James Matthew Barrie. Carnegie took great offence that Barrie had written about his own mother in the adoringly sentimental Margaret Ogilvy (1896) and had made money out of her memory.26

  On 24 November 1886 Carnegie felt well enough to write to Louise after the news of his mother’s death had sunk in: ‘Today as I see the great light once more my first word is to you . . . Louise, I am now wholly yours – all gone but you . . . I live in you now. . . . Till death, Louise, yours alone. . . .’27

  Although he expressed his feelings of abject loneliness, Carnegie always treasured his blood relations in Dunfermline and elsewhere. For years he husbanded investments on their behalf and bought them necessities as required, such as spectacles for Maria Hogan in 1879; each Christmas too, he sent his relations cash gifts such as the drafts of $300 in 1888.28

  Carnegie’s convalescence was long. From Cresson Dr Dennis took him to his own house at New York for a while and then followed a period of recuperation at Cumberland Island, off the coast of Georgia, a 20,000-acre estate that had belonged to brother Tom. From here a correspondence was conducted with Louise on preparations for their nuptials. Still in a fragile mental state, Carnegie urged Louise to retain secrecy around their plans; for some reason – probably associated with his mother’s memory – he wanted no newspaper announcement of the marriage until it had taken place.

  A wedding date of 12 April was planned, but Carnegie was called to a court hearing at Pittsburgh so a postponement was necessary. Louise had waited so long for Carnegie that a few more days did not perturb her. She would be given away by her grandfather George Buckmaster Whitfield. Finally at 8pm on 22 April at the Whitfield home at West 48th Street, New York, 51-year-old Andrew Carnegie was married by the Revd Charles Eaton to 30-year-old Louise Whitfield. It was a reasonably quiet affair with around thirty guests, including Aunt Aitken, Cousin Dod and the Phippses. Very shortly after the ceremony the newly-weds were taken to the North Germany Lloyd pier at New York and were waved aboard the SS Fulda to honeymoon in England. In true Carnegie fashion the bridegroom wangled the captain’s accommodation for their trip.

  FOURTEEN

  A HONEYMOON

  Andrew Carnegie may be little but his hoard and heart are great, a
nd he is a happy bridegroom and rejoiceth as a bridegroom to have his happiness sure . . .

  Mrs James G. Blaine, 1887

  As the Carnegies crossed the Atlantic the New York papers caught up with the news of the wedding and expressed interest in Carnegie’s wedding present to his wife. As well as a post-nuptial income provision of some $20,000, Carnegie gave Louise a house at 5 West 51st Street, New York.1 As soon as it was convenient, Carnegie sold Braemar Cottage at Cresson as part of the expunging of Margaret Carnegie’s mortal memories.

  The newly-weds spent their honeymoon of a fortnight on the Isle of Wight, now a flourishing resort island following the purchase of Old Osborne House in 1845 by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Uncle George Lauder, eager to see his nephew’s bride, visited them on the Isle of Wight and Louise soaked up Scottish history from him, elaborating on the foundations laid in her childhood encounters with the Waverley novels of Sir Walter Scott and Jane Porter’s notable novel The Scottish Chiefs (1810).2 A few days were then spent in London where they received congratulations on their marriage from William and Catherine Gladstone. They stopped off at Mentmore, the residence of the Earl of Rosebery in Buckinghamshire, and then they were off to Dunfermline and Carnegie’s old haunts. En route they paused at Edinburgh, where Carnegie received the Freedom (Honorary Burgess) of the City and the foundation stone was laid for the new Carnegie Library at George IV Bridge, which would open in 1890. Carnegie had contributed a benefaction of $250,000.

  For their first summer as man and wife Carnegie leased the Scottish estate of Kilgraston, a mile south-west of Bridge of Earn, Perthshire. By this time the area had developed as a summer resort and there were mineral wells (deemed the oldest in Scotland) nearby at Pitcaithly. Charles Grant (1831–91) had succeeded his father as the owner of Kilgraston in 1873. The red sandstone mansion was badly damaged by fire in 1871 and its rebuilding had sorely depleted the Grant finances; coupled with the agricultural depression of the 1880s, this caused the Grants to move to nearby Drummorie House in order to save money. They let out Kilgraston for profit and thus the Carnegies came to be residents there.3 From the moment she was greeted at the door of Kilgraston by a Scots piper, Louise, now deeming herself ‘more Scotch than her husband’, fell in love with the place. She wrote ecstatically to her mother:

  I wish I could describe this lovely place. Just now roses are in full bloom around one of my windows with white jessamine around the next one filling the room with the most delicious perfume. The beautiful lawn in front where we play tennis and the Scotch game of bowls, lovely shady walks on one side and in the distance a new mown field with hay cocks. Oh! why aren’t you all here to enjoy it too?4

  At Kilgraston Louise Carnegie saw how energetic her husband could be. He wanted to show her all the haunts of his childhood, and when not afoot or coach riding he was at a desk dealing with mail or writing speeches to be given in answer to the many requests for his thoughts on such subjects as Home Rule (for Ireland).

  Involvement in one historical event was considered a must for Carnegie while at Kilgraston. King Alexander III (r. 1249–86), ‘The Glorious’, is known as the last Celtic King of Scotland. Although a hero in Uncle George Lauder’s historic tales for the young Carnegie as a victor over King Haakon IV of Norway at the Battle of Largs in 1263, Alexander was beset with family disaster. He was predeceased by his wife Margaret (daughter of Henry III of England) and his three children; a rapid second marriage to Yolande de Dreux proved childless, and a little over four months after this marriage took place Alexander was riding from Edinburgh to Kinghorn Castle in Fife to join Yolande when he was thrown from his horse to his death over a cliff a mile or so from the castle. The date was 19 March 1286; Alexander was buried at Dunfermline.

  From as far back as the 1840s plans had been mooted to erect a new monument to Alexander III (an older marker having fallen into ruin) but nothing positive was achieved until interest was revived for the 600th anniversary of the event. Funds were sought by the monument committee, to which Queen Victoria subscribed £15. In all £270 was collected for a monument of red granite. The unveiling would be assisted by Victor Alexander Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, as his first duty as Lord Lieutenant of Fife. In the post came a letter from Carnegie to say that he would attend the unveiling on 19 July 1887 as part of Queen Victoria’s ongoing Golden Jubilee celebrations. Carnegie and Louise were part of the procession to the monument site in their carriage, but Carnegie declined to speak although there were calls from the crowd for him to do so. He did express the opinion that ‘the monument was built to mark a period of peace and prosperity for all’. In a letter to Queen Victoria, Lord Elgin reported Carnegie’s presence at the ceremony and his respectful duty to the royal name; on this occasion Carnegie’s republicanism evidently took a back seat.

  A bevy of visitors descended upon Kilgraston, from US Senator and Mrs Eugene Hale to Matthew Arnold, who made his last sojourn with Carnegie at Kilgraston, for he died shortly afterwards at Liverpool awaiting the arrival of his daughter Lucy, Mrs Whitridge, who had married an American. One important visitor was the American journalist and statesman James Gillespie Blaine, who was a member of the US House of Representatives from 1863 to 1876; although rising to the post of Secretary of State in Benjamin Harrison’s Republican administration in 1889–93, Blaine lost out in the presidential nominations four times, in all of which Carnegie was his staunch supporter. Blaine had explained to Carnegie the differing structures and protocols of the House of Commons and the US House of Representatives, and what if Carnegie decided on a career as a British MP? ‘If you take a seat in the House of Commons, you will be a greater man in the US, but, if you enter the House in Washington, you will be a greater man in England’ was Blaine’s assessment.5 Carnegie recommended Blaine’s book Thirty Years of Congress to Gladstone. Writing to her son Emmons, Mrs Blaine left an interesting memory of Kilgraston:

  Friday morning and the most beautiful day and Kilgraston a spot worthy of the day. We came to it Monday, not knowing whither Andrew was leading us . . . . Here we are at a country seat such as this island alone I imagine can show – a gillie in tartan to wake us every morning with the pipes, a coach-and-four to take us daily whithersoever we will, two cooks to spread a table before us in this garden of the Lord, and twenty servants to wait upon us at bed and board. Andrew Carnegie may be little but his hoard and heart are great, and he is a happy bridegroom and rejoiceth as a bridegroom to have his happiness sure, so that we are enjoying, as only pilgrims and sojourners at hotels should enjoy, this oasis of home life. Yesterday we returned from an excursion of two days to Dunfermline. As our company was large, half of us stayed with the Provost, a bachelor of sixty and a canny Scotchman. Of course it was a coaching party, twenty-three miles thither, and thirty-two hither yesterday. As we drove in at an opposite direction from that on which we started out, we surprised all the servants dancing at the rear of the house. As English servants are always instructed to keep away from the master and mistress, they scurried to cover like rabbits, and when we drove around to the front door, there was a piper marching up and down imperturbably, playing ‘The Campbells Are Coming!’ – the butler, the housekeeper, the lady’s maid waiting at the entrance, and all the housemaids carrying hot water to the various bedrooms. It was the funniest transformation scene I ever saw. Colonel [John Hay, US Ambassador to Britain, 1897] and Mrs Hay are coming today, to stop over Sunday, a splendid addition to the company. Your father is getting much benefit from the open air, in which he spends the entire day, and think how long the days are in this latitude; it was half past eight when we returned home last night and the sun was just setting, and we were dining at half past nine by its light alone. And your father could read the labels on the champagne bottles without glasses. Also he has danced the Haymarket, which is our Virginia Reel, on the lawn, and has played skittles. We breakfast every morning at nine and as Mr Carnegie will not sit down to the table without him, he gets up in good season . . . . There is nothing comparable t
o the interest of living people and homes. I would rather dine at Mr Carnegie’s old uncle’s in Dunfermline than see the Tower of Babel or any other tower.6

  Carnegie and his party visited many beauty spots nearby and could not resist hob-nobbing with the aristocracy. One notable visit was to the fine wooded estate of Dupplin Castle (1832), then the seat of George Hay-Drummond, 12th Earl of Kinnoul and his Countess Emily, 5 miles south-west of the city of Perth. included in the visit was Colonel John Hay, who later wrote: ‘The old Earl . . . is miserably poor – not able to buy a bottle of seltzer – with an estate worth millions in the hands of his creditors, and sure to be sold one of these days to some enterprising Yankee. . . . I wish . . . Carnegie would buy it.’7 Among the Kilgraston guests were a horde of Carnegie relations from Dunfermline: ‘They expressed their surprise to me that [Louise] ever married me, but I told them I was equally surprised.’8 Although Louise Carnegie was somewhat in awe of the guest list at Kilgraston, and overwhelmed by the cheering of the crowds that had greeted them at the Edinburgh library foundation ceremony which rang in her ears for days, she wrote to her mother that she missed the ‘old sweet routine’ at home; nevertheless ‘the great change’ in her life was wonderful and ‘Andrew is sweet and lovely’.9 Louise was much taken with Scots folk, and Mrs Nicholl, the Kilgraston housekeeper hired for the tenancy, was taken back with them to West 51st Street, along with butler George Irvine and servant Maggie Anderson, all of whom would stay in Carnegie service into the twentieth century.